


to see all the ways I can move

by Anonymous



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dance, M/M, Team Canada
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-24 11:42:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13213014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: The playlist ends, and Mat's lungs heave, and god, he’s so alive, so exhausted, so ready to go again.





	to see all the ways I can move

**Author's Note:**

  * For [preciousthings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/preciousthings/gifts).



> Title is from "Dreamy Bruises" by Sylvan Esso, which is also the song referenced in part i. 
> 
> This fic is structured as the Four Temperaments, which is [also a classic Balanchine ballet.](https://www.nycballet.com/Ballets/F/The-Four-Temperaments.aspx) The choreography is fantastic and very much how I place Mat's style in my head, so it seemed fitting. [For reference,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galen#Contributions_to_medicine) "individuals with sanguine temperaments are extroverted and social; choleric people have energy, passion, and charisma; melancholics are creative, kind, and considerate; and phlegmatics are characterized by dependability, kindness, and affection."
> 
> For A, for making me invested in Team Canada during WJC season. Thanks for enabling me to create yet another rarepair by telling me that Mat and Dante were childhood friends. Enjoy!

 

i. melancholic

Not to brag, but Mat’s like, fucking  _ on. _

 

He has the studio to himself, pure black floors and bare feet and an easy pair of pants. The expanse of the front mirror stretches out like a possibility, and the door is closed, and the bass kicks in and he’s invincible.

 

If you asked him what he was doing, exactly, to describe and repeat the movements, he couldn't tell you. It’s been at least an hour and his tank is sticking to his skin if he rolls a certain way, but the music fills him up and makes him brave, gives him a kick. There’s a slide, a natural drop and sway, and he’s dancing for no one and anyone, hips low and fluid moving into arms sharp and demanding. He steps over himself in a ball change and rolls back up, anticipating the kick of the singer’s breath. Familiarity. Energy. An ache in his calves and a swell in his chest and if he sits in the extension for just a moment, it’s easy to chasse and take it to an undercurve, covering the most ground he can. 

 

The Tisch studio is a fucking blessing. 

 

Mat thinks sometimes, as he dances, about the studio at home that looks just like this one. There’s a weight to the memory, the hindsight of a modern teacher telling him to track his ankles over his toes and the dull memory of the sharp pain of his tendon going a  _ little  _ too far as he did not, in fact, track his knees and instead landed wrong. When he pauses, the thoughts come slow, and he’s a little more present, less frantic in his movement. Mat can look in the mirror, take in the strength of his shoulders and the curve of his thighs, as the song changes from its bass-ridden urgency to something softer. 

 

Technique class is great, but he’s never as introspective, never as self-judgemental and simultaneously freed as he is when he’s stripped bare to marley and cotton and skin.

 

The beginning note of the song is an odd staccato that shifts into a vocal that wraps him up like his best friend’s arms, like his favorite blanket, comforts him like nothing else can.

 

He tilts his head back to the ceiling and turns away from the mirror. Inhales, feels the pinch of sore muscle around his chest from one too many push-ups. Exhales, feels his feet connected to the floor, toe, ball, arch, heel.

 

The beat picks up and he hangs his head, rolls up, starts another indeterminate sequence and feels out where the music takes him.

 

There’s a process to it, a process for everyone. For Auston, it’s precision. For Thomas, it’s force until exhaustion, contorting himself across the space and drawing the counts out, melting like taffy under his careful care until his body and the music seem to go on into infinity. Mat’s always loved something a friend of his taught him – start with the part of the song that your heart feels first, then pick apart the layers and translate them into your body. 

 

The vocals become sweeping rondes and a smooth jump, horizontal, the silhouette reminiscent of something out of martial arts. Next is the echo, a little uncomfortable like when you rest your head against a bus window and the vibration hurts your teeth. That gets an unnatural shape, a shift to the floor and a push of resistance through his arms. It’s expressive, the shift from fluid to more mechanical, makes him feel like he’s exploring his body better and taking up the space. The synth, the guitar, the clap all get picked up and worked through, and then he returns to the vocals and ends exhausted, on his back, near tears and happier than he’s been all week, a twinge in his hip and a lightness in his chest like something that he didn’t hear begging has just been set free.

 

The playlist ends, and his lungs heave, and god, he’s so  _ alive, _ so exhausted, so ready to go again.

 

 

ii. sanguine

 

“Try it,” Dante whispers. It’s dark in Mat’s room, his arms extended out as if he was ripe to be crucified. He’s vulnerable. Dante’s hands clutch his wrists, gentle, move around to grasp his hands and guide them towards Dante, over his chest.

 

Dante’s skin is warm under his fingertips, and Mat’s stomach clenches with the thrill. Dante’s strong, from a hell of a lot of hockey, his chest broad and his stomach solid, angling out a little with solid muscle below a little layer of pudge that Mat loves more than he’s ever loved anything before.

 

“Is this good?” Mat asks, quiet, and Dante hums. Mat steps towards him. Dante rests his head on Mat’s shoulder, in the crook of his neck, and exhales as Mat’s fingers find his waistband. His breath is hot on Mat’s cheek, and then they’re kissing, Dante pushing back against him, his hands letting go of Mat’s and coming up around his neck, cradling his jaw. Mat’s senses are just  _ Dante, Dante, Dante,  _ hands and warmth and an overwhelming sense of  _ god, I missed you _ .

 

“I missed you,” Dante breathes as he pulls back. Mat can’t see him very well in the low light, but he can recognize the softness of Dante’s brow. “It’s good to be home.”

 

Coquitlam is cold this time of year. The heat in the house comes on with a  _ whoosh _ and Mat smiles, pressing their foreheads together. It’s sappy, and he’s thrilled.

 

“We aren’t that far, usually,” he quips. “You come to visit me all the time in New York from Boston.”

 

“Yeah, but once a month still  _ sucks, _ ” Dante pouts, and Mat gets it, he really does. They’re teenagers. Phone sex only goes so far, and nothing replaces falling asleep comfortable with someone warm snuggled up to your side. 

 

“I know,” Mat says, charting the curve of Dante’s hipbone in the darkness. “Hey.”

 

“Hi.”

 

“I’m proud of you,” Mat says, all at once. “You’re killing it with BU, you know that?”

 

Dante smiles. Mat can tell by the tops of his cheekbones catching just a little more light.

 

It’s quiet for a second, the wind whistling a little outside Mat’s bedroom. The flannel of Dante’s pajama pants is a different kind of soft than his skin. It’s kind of captivating.

 

“Just because you don’t play hockey doesn’t mean you aren’t amazing either,” Dante says, quiet. Mat can feel his gaze in the darkness. “I’ve seen you dance. Hell, the classical variation they’re having you rehearse right now – those battements? Damn, Mat. I don’t think I could ever.”

 

“It’s just different,” Mat says, helpless, thankful.

 

“I know,” Dante says, and then he kisses Mat again and Mat stops worrying.

 

 

iii. choleric

 

Dante’s front row for the winter showcase when Mat dances  _ Giselle _ .

 

The theater at NYU is insane, a blackbox that leaves no room for the audience’s anticipation to end before that of the performers begins. It’s brutal. There’s no barrier between how  _ they’re  _ feeling and how  _ you’re  _ feeling. Mat finds that no matter how many times he rehearses in front of a mirror, then in front of an empty blackbox theater, then in front of the artistic director and the rest of the company, it never compares. His gaze for the majority of the piece is directly forward or a little up, and there’s no contextual staging. Mat enters, upstage right, hands tucked primly in fourth, and the music starts and he travels right away. There’s no line of maidens to his right, no scene preceding him, no pointework after. He just -  _ is.  _ It scares the shit out of him. It never gets easier.

 

The music is a bit outdated, but it’s fun to play that persona, a lord trapped in ancient romantic tradition, forced to dance until death for deception of a lover. He completes the tours, the travelling, the leaps and jetes and by the time he’s down on his side at the end of the ninety seconds he’s out of breath.

 

A lot of dancers Mat knows, his classmates and friends from home, say that it feels different somehow to perform classical than contemporary, not just physically. He feels it, but can never describe it to Dante, struggles to communicate the difference. The closest he got was in the difference between skating on hockey skates versus figure skates. Dante seemed to get it, though, tried to understand.

 

“You’re incredible,” Dante says after the show, once he’s changed and bundled up. They walked down to get pizza at one of the nice sit-down places in the Village after the show, and Dante’s smiling at Mat over a basil-margherita flavored gift from heaven. “Seriously. I saw you working on it but I had no idea it would be that intense. It’s different seeing videos of you rehearsing one part versus doing the whole thing all at once, you know?”

 

Mat nods. “It’s a little crazy. I don’t think I’ll want to get out of bed until like, eleven tomorrow.”

 

“That’s okay. I can keep you up tonight,” Dante adds, shameless, bumping his ankle against Mat’s under the table. Mat rolls his eyes. “You’re the worst.”

 

“Am not. Stop disrespecting a future NHL all star.”

 

“Wow,” Mat deadpans, laughing. “Sorry we’re in the presence of greatness.”

 

Dante’s laughing too. “Mmm, who’s the destined Royal Ballet soloist here?”

 

“Stop it.”

 

“You love it.”

 

He’s right. Mat does.

 

“Like I’d ever join the Royal Ballet.”

 

“You’re more of a –”

 

“– contemporary kind of guy,” Mat finishes, and they’re grinning at one another, huge and stupid. “Eat your pizza.”

 

 

iv. phlegmatic

 

Never let it be said that Mat is a bad boyfriend.

 

“Weren’t you  _ cold? _ ” he asks, a little accusing, when Dante finally comes through the door of their hotel room. Mat got back from the field a little while ago and right now, under the down comforter seems like the only right place in the world to be. “Like, I was just sitting out there and I was about to fucking lose it. I know it’s warm when you’re actually up and moving but christ, that bench must be hell.”

 

“Hell frozen over,” Dante confirms, but there’s no energy behind it. He undoes his coat and tosses the rest of his outerwear on the chair by the entryway closet, moving on autopilot towards Mat. He’s tired, Mat can see it in his eyes. Mat lifts up the edge of the blanket and Dante climbs under, his hands cold over Mat’s shirt as he wraps his arms around Mat. Mat yelps a little, just to be difficult, and Dante smiles weakly.

 

Dante’s tried to console him after bad auditions, and Mat’s tried to comfort him after bad games. It’s hard to bridge that gap though, the stark difference in approach for individual failure versus team failure. They’ve learned, though, over the last year or so. Certain roads are easier than others, and when all else fails –

 

“I’m sorry,” Mat whispers, and Dante nestles against his chest, breathes wetly. “I know it hurts.”

 

“Yeah,” Dante says, thick and devastating, and Mat holds him a little tighter. 

 

“We’re young. You’re allowed to learn and grow,” Mat says, and Dante nods. He knows Dante won’t get it all on the first time of him repeating it, and it’s okay. It’s just important that he hears it from someone. Mat kisses the top of his head. Dante sniffles.

“I love you,” Mat adds, barely audible. 

 

“Me too,” Dante says, and Mat holds him as he cries. It isn’t how they hoped things would go, but they’ve got each other, and the team has time, another shot, maybe.

 

Memories can hurt worse with time, especially when time brings repetition. Mat knows too well how last year tore Dante apart. They fought quite a bit in that time, and Mat had to step away, let him process it. They ended up getting together a few weeks after silver. 

 

(“I don’t want to be your rebound,” Mat said, half joking, half heartbroken, letting Dante in on a secret that he hadn’t really come to terms with.

 

“You’re better than gold,” Dante had said, and then gone quiet for a second. “Gold is just one step along the way, you know? You’re like, endgame. I’ve known you forever. I’ve hoped, for a while.”

 

Mat didn’t respond.

 

“I promise,” Dante whispered, and the conviction in his tone was enough to bring Mat to consider it. He spent a lot of time in the studio last February.)

 

Dante’s curls emerge from where he’s tucked against Mat. When he looks up, his eyes are red. “Can we – I don’t want to think about hockey right now.”

 

Mat grabs the remote, nods. “What’re you in the mood for, babe?”

 

“I don’t know,” Dante answers, and it’s easy, a well choreographed routine to let Dante roll on top of him and kiss him while sneaking the remote out of Mat’s hands.

 

Dante’s still one of the people it’s easiest to dance with.


End file.
